Because the existing top Google results suck, I keep having to waste time whenever I want to do this. [This = setting up a subversion repository in some directory on my filesystem, for use only by myself, so I don’t have to worry about remote access and what not.]

Decide a name (e.g. svnrepo) for the directory where the repository (the database etc., not the files) will be stored, go to the directory that will be its parent, and create the directory (and the repo) with: svnadmin create svnrepo.

Decide a name (e.g. workspace) and location for your workspace (the directory where your files will actually be stored), and create it by checking out the (currently empty) repository into it with svn checkout file:///home/shreevatsa/path/to/svnrepo workspace.

Go to the directory, create/copy files into it, add them with svn add filename, and commit with svn commit -m "Initial commit".

Many web interfaces (like the WordPress dashboard in which I type this) allow you to drag and drop sections of the page to rearrange them. I think I first saw it when the personalised Google homepage (google.com/ig) came out, but I don’t know if it was the first. Here are some libraries that seem to help you